At the weekend it emerged that 18-year-old Private Jamie Cooper, the youngest Briton to be injured in Iraq, could be one of the latest victims of the disease which causes severe diarrhoea and is spread by poor hygiene.

The list of hospitals with a poor C.diff record emerged as the Government was accused of ignoring an internal memo in 2006 that warned that the infection was becoming endemic in NHS hospitals and suggested that £270million was needed to tackle it. "